At the dawn of the year 2000, American Psycho divided critics and audiences. A film that, upon its release, perhaps wasn’t appreciated as it should have been or wanted to be. Yet, almost 23 years later, the film starring Christian Bale is experiencing a second youth.

The social critique expressed by director Mary Harron is now more relevant than ever. It manages to reflect the decay of a society that, with the relentless passage of time, has not improved but rather worsened.

Today, we will uncover the message of the film, so please be aware of spoilers if you haven’t seen it yet. There will be many spoilers in this article, so do not continue reading beyond this point.

The social critique of American Psycho

Who is Patrick Bateman?

This question revolves around the entire plot of American Psycho. Not because the character, played by Christian Bale, is mysterious or elusive, but rather because he serves the purpose of the social critique conveyed by the film. In fact, almost all the other secondary characters will never truly know who Patrick Bateman really is. Despite him being a confirmed serial killer, so lucid that he confesses his crimes, his friends and colleagues struggle to recognize him.

Multiple times throughout the film, his colleagues mistake him for someone else, instilling a strong sense of estrangement in the viewer. This happens not because the other characters suffer from some kind of short-term memory loss, but because, in reality, no one cares about Patrick Bateman. No one cares about anyone except themselves. The film explicitly focuses on individualism and the frivolous problems of high society in 1980s New York (the scene where the company employees show off their business cards, all bearing the title “Vice President,” is emblematic). Bateman is a deeply disturbed person, but no one seems to notice. His appearance, his clean and groomed image, manages to divert attention from a violent, dangerous, and murderous personality.

The role of the serial killer

It is natural to think that Bateman’s serial killer persona is merely a pretext used by the director to forcefully depict how individualistic Wall Street society was and still is.

When Christian Bale’s character kills one of his colleagues (Paul Allen, played by Jared Leto), no one suspects him. On the contrary, he is even given a false alibi. According to some friends, Bateman was present at a party on the night Allen disappeared. But the viewer knows this is not true because they witnessed the scene where the two had dinner together. Why is this alibi unconsciously created? Because no one truly knows who Patrick Bateman is! Within that society, everyone is the same. They are figurines created ad hoc to represent a preconceived image that never strays from superficial judgments based on appearance.

That’s why no one genuinely knows Bateman. That’s why everyone continues to mistake his identity for someone else’s. And not just his identity, but also that of others.

So, what does the ending mean?

During the final sequences, the viewer is led to believe that, in one way or another, everything seen up to that point was merely a product of Bateman’s disturbed mind. In fact, no one believes the confession made by the serial killer to his lawyer. He dismisses it as a mere joke, also demonstrating that he doesn’t know the identity of his client or the people around him. Bateman’s monologue clearly explains what we are saying:

“There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it; I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis. My punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my words. This confession has meant nothing.”

“My punishment continues to elude me,” there is no more representative phrase to understand the ending of American Psycho. As much as Patrick Bateman has lost sight of the boundary between reality and fiction, immersed in the omnipotent delusion of his madness, he knows that he has actually committed those murders. It was not fiction. And at the same time, he knows very well that he will always get away with it because no one knows who Patrick Bateman is. He can assume millions of different identities while remaining himself because people will always be preoccupied with their trivial problems and will never understand what lies behind his smile and his sculpted image.

Conclusions

It is an incredibly strong social critique that was underappreciated and misunderstood in 2000. However, American Psycho has aged far too well, and now, in 2023, it remains even more relevant. Our society hasn’t changed since 1987; if anything, it has only worsened. While many things may not be the same, individualism still reigns supreme. Who knows how many more Patrick Batemans are out there, while the world continues to ignore them, consumed by its egocentric worldview.